Words and Deeds: An Evening with Artist Hugh Buchanan – Review

On the 16th May 2014 we took part in our first ever Festival of Museums and Museums at Night event – “Words and deeds: an evening with artist Hugh Buchanan”. We invited guests to come along to the College and hear from Hugh who specialises in the most wonderful watercolours of museums and archives and the amazing documents they hold in their collections.

The evening got off to a great start with steak pie and veggie haggis (and a wee glass of wine) before Hugh began his talk. He took us through his early years as an artist and discussed what led him to his interest in museums and archives. Hugh’s paintings are amazing and as one person commented “you can almost smell the dust!” I think even Hugh was delighted with how great his paintings looked on the big screen!

Deed boxes. Watercolour painting by Hugh Buchanan

After his talk, Hugh very kindly agreed to give a master class on perspective to a small group of budding artist. They were given an hour to sketch scenes from our beautiful lower library and there was a prize for our favourite sketch of the evening.

A selection of sketches drawn by our visitors

Hugh Buchanan and the winner of the best sketch of the evening

For all those who were a little shy of showing off their artistic talents, there was the opportunity to go around the College and view our own fantastic art collection. The College is home to an impressive collection of art including a fine copy of J. J. Audubon’s “Birds of America”, “Scottish Mother and Child” by John Bellany and “The Stretcher Bearers” by Hugh Adam Crawford. We also house a growing number of works by young and contemporary artists, many of which have been winners at the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts exhibitions, to which the College offers an annual prize.

A huge thank you to Hugh and our guests for making the evening so great – We hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did.

You can find out more about Hugh Buchanan and his paintings on his website http://rcp.sg/hughb.

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The College’s heritage collections – including thousands of medical and surgical instruments, rare books, archives, and pictures – span over 6 centuries and are an excellent resource for exploring the history of medicine and the history of the city of Glasgow. Many items from the collections have been digitised and are available to view here. Our digitisation work is ongoing, and we add new items to the site regularly, so keep checking back to discover more.